Hood's Gang (Earth-616)
| Title = Hood's Gang | Aliases = Hood's Gang, Hood's criminal empire, Hood's crime syndicate, Hood's army of criminals, Hood's Army, Hood's villain army, "Masters of Evil," "New Initiative" | Status = Active | Universe = Earth-616 | Identity = Secret | BaseOfOperations = New York City, New York | TeamLeaders = The Hood | CurrentMembers = Answer, Armadillo, Brothers Grimm, Centurius, Chemistro, Constrictor, Crossfire, Crusader, Cutthroat, Deathwatch, Graviton, Griffin, Living Laser, Rampage, Scarecrow, Shockwave, Slug, Sunstroke, Vermin, Wrecking Crew (Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, Wrecker) | FormerMembers = Basilisk, Blackout (Daniels), Blackout (Lilin), Blood Brother, Bushwhacker, Centurious, Controller, Corruptor, Crimson Cowl, Doctor Demonicus, Fancy Dan, Jonas Harrow, Human Cannonball, Hydro-Man, Ironclad, Jigsaw, John King, Knickknack, Madame Masque, Man-Fish, Mandrill, Masked Marauder, Mentallo, Microchip, Millie, Mister Fear, Montana, Nitro, Ox, Purple Man, Razor-Fist, Sam, Shocker, "Slug", Squid, Steve, Tina, Tiger Shark, Vapor, Vector, White Dragon, Wizard, X-Ray | Allies = Satana, Wrecking Crew; formerly Cabal (disbanded), Iron Patriot, Black Stream (disbanded), Dragon Lords | Enemies = New Avengers, Punisher, Mister Negative, White Fang, Force, Inner Demons, Iron Man | Origin = | PlaceOfFormation = New York City, New York | Creators = Brian Michael Bendis; Leinil Yu | First = New Avengers Vol 1 35 | HistoryText = This is a group of criminals formed by the Hood during his tenure as the kingpin of crime in New York. While the Avengers were fighting a symbiote invasion of Manhattan, Hood used a Deathlok to rob a bank in New Jersey, then used the proceeds as seed money to recruit a large number of supervillains. As luck would have it, a recent breakout had left most of the villains free, but struggling to get by, so his offer was well-received. With a close council of advisors and enforcers, Hood led his people in a fight against Luke Cage's The New Avengers, which he lost through the actions of Dr Strange. However, the Hood was able to use his magic gear to get them out of jail quickly. The group was active during the Skrull invasion, where they sided with the other human heroes against the aliens. In the wake of this, the group began to benefit from their leader's alliance with Norman Osborn, the new American homeland security czar and head of H.A.M.M.E.R. In this new environment, the organization consolidated its control of the New York criminal underworld, and began to spread in new directions: sending members to join the Initiative, trying to control the zombie virus. At the same time they faced opposition from rebel heroes like New Avengers and the Punisher, and even from independent villains, like Enforcer and Mister Negative. During this time, Jonas Harrow, a high-ranking member of the group, found the remains of a device intended to nullify superpowers, and rebuilt it, able to include or exclude people from its effect. When the Hood lost his powers and had to go on a journey to recover them, Harrow struck, taking control of the gang and fighting the New Avengers and Osborn's "official" Avengers team. When Hood got back, he killed Harrow and retook the group. In the wake of this, the group became part of Norman Osborn's plan to invade Asgard, with the promise of government-mandated immunity from prosecution for all members if they were successful. Unfortunately, due to a combination of plans coming to fruition, the invasion was thwarted, and in the confusion, the group's members were all either arrested or had to flee, and the group's power was spent. Years later, The Hood took a second shot at becoming the new kingpin of New York following Wilson Fisk's exit from the underworld. After the fall of Kingpin runner-up Diamondback at the hands of the Defenders, The Hood grabbed hold of his territory and operations. He reunited many former members of his old army, and intended to form a new alliance, dividing New York in territories and assigning one supervillain to act as said territory's indisputable kingpin. Even though the meeting was interrupted by the Defenders and numerous of their allies, the reformation of The Hood's army moved forward. One of their first actions consisted on targeting Victor von Doom, who had turned a new leaf and had become the new Iron Man. Hood's Gang ambushed Iron Man in the ruins of Castle Doom where Hood used his demonic bullets to knock him off balance, allowing the rest of the army to gang up on him and knock him out. With Victor von Doom down on the ground, Hood ordered his minions to tear the place apart and uncover its secrets. Wrecker worked to open up Victor's Iron Man armor as he is being restrained by Rampage and Shockwave. Before Wrecker could finish the job, Victor teleported away in a bright flash. Hood suspected that he and Tony Stark were connected and that they had to find Tony Stark in order to get to Victor's wealth. | Equipment = | Transportation = | Weapons = | Notes = | Trivia = | Links = }} Category:Organized Crime Category:Criminal Organizations